Jani A 10 Year Old Boy Gets $10,000 by Facebook

Although his last name is being withheld for obvious privacy reasons, a 10 year old boy named Jani found an exploit in Instagram that allowed him to delete any comment that he chooses on the popular image sharing social platform.

To confirm the vulnerability for Facebook, the child deleted a comment that the company made on a test account. In response, the social giant gave the hacking wunderkind a $10,000 prize as part of their bug bounty program.

“I would have been able to eliminate anyone,” Jani told the Finnish publication Iltalehti, “even Justin Bieber.” Facebook has revealed that the vulnerability was located in a private application programming interface that was failing to check whether the user making an action to delete a comment was the same user who posted it.

Jani says his prize money will go toward football equipment and a new bicycle. He hopes to be a security expert when he grows up, and it seems he’s well on his way.

The skills he developed simply from watching YouTube videos allowed him to find a bug in one of the world’s largest social media platforms.

Facebook’s bug bounty program is an ongoing incentive that offers cash rewards to anyone who is able to report and verify vulnerabilities. In 2015 alone, the program paid out $936,000 to 210 researched with the average payout landing at $1,780. Since its launch in 2011, the program has awarded over $4.3 million to bug-hunting researchers.

If Jani, a 10 year old could hack into Instagram just by watching numerous tech videos and learning from them, then anyone with the right mindset will be able to achieve such fame.

Is not all about being online 24*7, its using that precious time to endown yourself with skills and knowledge that can bring you to a positive limelight.

Youtube, Facebook, Blogger, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp etc are so full of stuffs that can’t be learnt in a short while. Learn new things from these platforms and the world will be forced to look for you. Don’t waste resources, utililize every bit of it.

What do you think of Facebook’s youngest security defender? Let us know your take on this story in the comments section.